Athlone Gardens

Address: Portobello Road North W10

A small neighbourhood park between the northern end of Portobello Road and Wornington Road. The park contains grass areas, trees, shrubs and annual flowers. The park also provides a children’s playground, facilities for dogs and an adjacent floodlit hard play area.

Garden Practicalities: Staffed park. Open from 7.30am until dusk.

History

Athlone Gardens were named as a memorial to Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone who died in 1981.

Athlone Gardens Redevelopment 

The park is going to change during the redevelopment of the Wornington Green Estate,

Why is Athlone Gardens changing?

The Council has agreed to allow Kensington Housing Trust to build on part of Athlone Gardens during the redevelopment of the Wornington Green Estate.

Using part of the park in this way will shorten the overall time for the redevelopment, and will mean that the majority of existing residents will only have to move home once.   

Unfortunately this will mean a smaller park for several years. The Council is committed to doing what it can to make up for this loss of park by creating the best possible temporary park.

When the redevelopment is finished the Council has insisted there will be a new park which is the same size as the existing Athlone Gardens, which will have new and better facilities.  We will work with the local community to make sure it is a great new open space, designed by the people who will use it.

What will the temporary park be like?

This map shows the shape of the temporary park, and where the playground and entrances will be.

Earlier this year the parks team spoke to people who use and live near Athlone Gardens to let them know what will be happening to the park and ask their views on how the temporary park can be made as good as possible. We spoke to over 100 people and have made some decisions based on what they said:

• we will put a new playground into the park, and have chosen equipment that was very popular with the children and parents we spoke to.
• we expect it to be ready by Spring next year, as it takes time to put in new equipment, but we will start as soon as we can once the old playground is closed. We will also put signs up to tell people where the nearest alternative playgrounds are
• the staff hut will also be closed, however we will are looking at other ways of storing their equipment and there will still be staff visiting the park every day.
• we are asking the developers to make sure the hoardings around the park are high enough to stop balls going over them, as this was something people were concerned about.
• we are going to put in new seats to replace some that will be removed, and we will also put in a new water fountain, a new dog toilet, and new plants to replace some of those that will be removed when the half park is closed.
• we will keep the trees that are in the park for as long as possible, and we will look into planting mature trees in the new park.

There will be more changes to the park in the next few years and we will keep asking what people want us to do to make the park as good as it can be in the circumstances.

If you have anything you would like to ask or tell us now, please email environment@rbkc.gov.uk.  

To read the full report of people’s comments see the status and progress report.